An Introduction to Ladies Perfume

It is a common movie and TV gag – a person is walking through a department store and suddenly receives an unexpected and unwelcome blast of perfume from one of the store’s sales clerks. While such a thing is actually a common enough occurrence to have become a “mainstream” joke, perfumes have been in existence much longer than department store sales counters. In fact, the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians were known to use fragrance and oils on a regular basis.

Though we think of perfume as something primarily used by ladies, throughout history it has been worn by both genders. The first person noted for making perfume was actually a woman named Tapputi, who lived more than two thousand years ago in Mesopotamia. She would have had few resources for making her fragrances, and probably did not provide varying degrees of concentrated perfumes to her customers.

Today however, ladies perfume comes in a staggering number of varieties, and the ingredients used to create the distinctive fragrances and odors are often quite surprising. Sources for modern perfumes and colognes include plants, bark, flowers, fruits and resins as well as musk and civet compounds from animals. There are some synthetic odorants employed, but not to a large extent.

Though it might seem a bit odd to think of a lovely floral ladies perfume containing the extract of a beaver’s glands, the way in which perfumes are “constructed” allows for such potent odors to actually enhance the final result. The way that perfume experts describe each fragrance is through a musical metaphor – there are top, middle and base notes that all come together in a harmony of perfect scent. This is how a musky odor will actually complement a delicate floral compound.

Ladies perfume does not come as a single type, but as different levels of concentration. This makes a certain perfume affordable to a significantly wider range of consumers. The true perfumes are the most expensive and usually the highest concentrations sold. In descending order, there are also Eau de Parfum, Eau de Toilette, Eau de Cologne and the various “splashes” with very little concentrate and mostly solvent.

Consumers are able to find ladies perfume in a wide variety of locations. They are available at most pharmacies, department stores, specialty cosmetic shops and even in many boutiques as well as thousands of online sites. The popularity of fragrance has also spilled over into body crèmes, soap and lotions as well, and many famous brands offer a complete line of scented goods in addition to their ladies perfume.